Literary Elements and

Language Terms – Set #3

Poetry and Drama Terms

Unit 3 – Romeo and Juliet

English I Pre-AP

DRAMA AND TRAGEDY

Drama

A narrative that is

meant to be performed

by actors in front of an

audience. The plot and

characters are

developed through

dialogue and action.

DRAMATIC

CONVENTIONS

DIVISIONS

Act

A larger division of a dramatic text that

indicates a shift in location or the passage of

time.

Scene

A smaller division of a dramatic text that

indicates a shift in location or the passage of time.

Dramatis Personae

A list of characters in a play, usually in order of

appearance. The dramatis personae may or may not

include a brief description of each character.

Stage Directions

Directions in the text of a drama that allow actors and

directors to stage the drama and readers to “see” the

action. They are typically italicized and will often explain

how characters should look, speak, move, and behave.

Example:

BENEATHA Haylo… (Disappointed) Yes, he is. (She tosses the phone to WALTER, who barely catches it) It’s Willie Harris again. (from A Raisin in the Sun)

Prologue

A brief opening section to a play spoken by a

single actor called the “chorus.” In many plays,

a prologue welcomes the audience and gives

them a taste of the story.

Example:

The first fourteen lines of Romeo and Juliet

Epilogue

A piece of writing at the end of a work of

literature or drama, usually used to bring

closure to the work.

Example:

The final segment at the end of Harry Potter

and the Deathly Hallows

Dramatic Irony

The audience is aware of something that the

characters onstage are not aware of; works to

build suspense in a text or drama.

Comic Relief

A humorous scene, incident

or speech that relieves the

overall emotional intensity.

By providing contrast, comic

relief serves to heighten the

seriousness of the main

action while helping audiences to

absorb earlier events in the plot

and get ready for the ones to

come.

Catharsis

The purging or purification of the emotions of pity

and fear that are aroused by a tragedy. “But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown

to care for the boy, after all?”

“For him?” shouted Snape. “Expecto Patronum!” From the tip of his wand

burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the

office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away,

and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were

full of tears.

“After all this time?”

“Always,” said Snape.”

(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling)

This catharsis allows the audience to feel the intense sadness of Snape’s

life in the fact that he never stopped loving Harry’s mother. It also may make

the audience consider the lengths to which they might go to honor a loved

one’s memory.

Dialogue

A conversation between two or more people.

Any portion of a staged drama, that is neither a

monologue nor a soliloquy, is a dialogue.

SINGLE-PERSON SPEECHES

Monologue

A long speech by one person to

an audience of any number of

people

Soliloquy

A long speech in which a

character who is usually onstage

alone expresses his or her

thoughts and feelings aloud.

Aside

Words spoken by a character in a play to the

audience or to another character that are not

supposed to be heard by the others onstage.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which one directly

addresses an absent or imaginary person, or

some abstraction. This is often used when

emotions become most intense.

Examples:

Heaven tell me, why does he speak thus?

Father, if only you were alive to see this insult

to your name!

POETRY TERMS

Enjambment

A poetic technique in which one line ends

without a pause and must continue on to the

next line to complete its meaning; also referred

to as a “run-on line.”

Examples:

“I will not eat green eggs / And ham, I will not eat them Sam I Am” (Dr. Seuss).

“I drew to part them. In the instant came

The fiery Tybalt with his sword prepared,”

(R&J 1.110-111)

Assonance

Repetition of similar vowel sounds that are

followed by different consonant sounds,

especially in words that are close together in a

poem.

Example: The words base and fade and the

words young and love

“Hear the mellow wedding bells

From the molten-golden notes” (“The Bells”)

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds in close

proximity.

Example:

Behind Me -- dips Eternity --

Before Me -- Immortality --

Myself -- the Term between –

(Emily Dickinson)

Euphony

Grouping together of harmonic, pleasing

sounds (opposite of cacophony)

Example:

“The mild-eyed melancholy Lotus-eaters

came.” (“The Lotus Eaters”)

“Hear all, all see, / And like her most whose

merit most shall be; / Which, on more view of

many, mine, being one, / May stand in

number, though in reck’ning none”

(Act I, scene ii).

Cacophony

Describes harsh, discordant sounds (when

read aloud), probably loud noises (opposite of

euphony); difficult for actors to say.

Examples

“With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

Agape they heard me call.”

(“Rime of the Ancient Mariner”)

“I’ll look to like if looking liking move” (RJ 1.3).

Refrain

Repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines.

Example

“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

(“Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening”)

Rhyme

The occurrence of similar or identical sounds at

the end of two or more words.

Examples:

Suite, heat, and complete

End Rhyme

Rhyme that occurs at the end of two or more

lines of verse.

Examples:

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could.

Internal rhyme

When rhyme occurs internally within individual

lines of poetry.

Example:

“This night I hold an old accustomed

feast…” (RJ 1.2).

The words hold and old rhyme within this one line

of verse.

Slant rhyme

Occurs when authors attempt to rhyme words

that simply do not rhyme exactly.

Examples:

lap and shape

fiend and mean

gun and thumb

What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy

fearful symmetry?”

Symmetry and eye don’t really rhyme…

Couplet

A series of two rhymed lines with a pattern of

AA, meaning that the ends of the two lines

rhyme with each other.

Example:

“For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

Quatrain

A series/unit of four rhymed lines

Example:

“When, in disgrace with Forturne and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate…”

Rhythm and Meter

Rhythm

A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

in a line of poetry

“In FAIR VeROna WHERE we LAY our SCENE.”

(Romeo and Juliet)

Meter

Generally regular pattern of stressed and

unstressed syllables in poetry.

Iambic pentameter

The rhythm in which Shakespeare writes his plays and his sonnets

Break the name down… An ‘iamb’ is a metrical foot, or unit of

measurement, consisting of an unstressed

syllable followed by a stressed syllable ( ˘ ´). One iamb = ăriśe.

“Penta” means five, so…

Line of verse that contains five iambs. This line is ten syllables long with an alternating pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables.

Iambic pentameter cont.

A line of 5 iambs (Iambic pentameter):

Example:

˘ ´ ˘ ´ ˘ ´ ˘ ´ ˘ “But soft! What light through yonder window

´ breaks?” (Romeo & Juliet).

Blank Verse

Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter;

“blank” means the poetry is not rhymed; this is

the major form of verse in Shakespeare’s plays.

EXAMPLE:

“On pain of torture, from those bloody hands/

Throw your mistempered weapons to the

ground,/ and hear the sentence of your

moved prince” (R&J 1.1.88-90).

Free Verse

A form of poetry that does not have a regular

rhythm or rhyme scheme. Look out for who

speaks in free verse or prose in the play versus

who speaks in blank verse – it’s significant!

EXAMPLE:

“To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to

stand. Therefore if thou are moved thou

runn’st away” (R&J 1.1.9-11).

Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem written in iambic

pentameter and used to explore such deeply

felt issues as the fleeting nature of love and the

aching questions of mortality; typically presents

a problem/issue and then offers a “solution”

Shakespearean Sonnet

Consists of three quatrains and a couplet

Presents the issue in the three quatrains and

the “solution” in the couplet

The shift from issue to resolution is called the

volta (turn).

Example:

The Prologue of Romeo & Juliet.

PARADOX

Paradox

An apparently contradictory statement that actually reveals some

truth.

Examples:

“Everyone is completely unique, just like everyone else”

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." -The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger.-C. S. Lewis

Exception Paradox: "If there is an exception to every rule, then every rule must have at least one exception, the exception to this one being that it has no exception;”

Petronius’ Paradox: "Practice moderation in all things. Including moderation."

Oxymoron

A concise paradox that brings together two

contradictory terms.

Examples:

“jumbo shrimp,” “act naturally,” “found missing,”

“genuine imitation,” “good grief”

OTHER LITERARY

TERMS

Allusion

A brief, usually indirect reference to a person,

place, or event--real or fictional. Four types

are:

historical

literary

mythological

Religious

EXAMPLE: “She’ll not be hit / With Cupid’s arrow.

She has Dian’s wit, / And, in strong proof of chastity

well armed” (R&J 1.1.216-218).

Analogy

A comparison made between two things to

show how they are alike

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet.

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called”

(RJ 2.2).

Anecdote

Very brief account of an incident.

Example:

In her essay, “Homeless” Anna Quindlen uses

an anecdote about a homeless woman to

introduce a discussion of homelessness.

Antithesis A statement in which sharply contrasting words,

phrases, clauses, or sentences are juxtaposed to

emphasize a point. In true antithesis, both the

ideas and the grammatical structures are

balanced.

Example

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of

foolishness…”

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for

mankind.”

Archaism

Something archaic (old and outdated).

Examples:

“thee” “thou” “thine”

Conceit A metaphor that just does not work or fit very easily. The

comparison is unlikely but is, nonetheless, intellectually

imaginative.

Example:

“The United States is a venerable sea turtle, silently gliding

through the blue depths”.

In "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,“ Donne compares

two souls in love to the points on a compass.

“If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two,

Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the other do.”

Juxtaposition

To place side by side in order to compare.

Example:

Romeo and Juliet has a wide range of strong contrasts: youth and old age;

servants and nobles;

love-sick Romeo and fiery Tybalt;

the noisy public feast and the private whispers of the lovers;

Romeo's infatuation and Juliet's wit;

the old nurse and young Juliet;

Parallelism

Repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that

have the same grammatical structure or that state a

similar idea.

Example:

parallelism of words:

She tried to make her pastry fluffy, sweet, and delicate.

(3 adjectives)

parallelism of phrases:

Singing a song or writing a poem is joyous. (2 gerund

phrases)

parallelism of clauses:

Perch are inexpensive; cod are cheap; trout are

abundant; but salmon are best. (noun / verb / adjective)

Pun

A play on the multiple meanings of a word or on

two words that sound alike but have different

meanings.

Example:

What has four wheels and flies? A garbage

truck! (pun on the word flies)

Fun with Puns!! Dear Friends,

It is with the saddest heart I pass on the following:

Please join me in remembering a great icon -- the veteran Pillsbury spokesman.

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71. Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain

Crunch. The gravesite was piled high with flours.

As longtime friend, Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy, describing Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded, Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers.

He was not considered a very "smart" cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times, he even still, as a crusty old man, was considered a roll model for millions. Toward the end it was thought he would rise again, but alas, he was no tart.

Doughboy is survived by his wife, Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough; plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about twenty minutes.

Rhetorical Question

A question posed for its persuasive effect

without the expectation of a reply.

Examples:

"Why me?”

“O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low? / Are all

thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,

Shrunk to this little measure?” (Julius Caesar,

Act III, scene i).

Synechdoche

When something is identified only by mention

of a smaller part of itself.

Example:

“I soared into the air as the wheels left the

runway.” – mentions only wheels, instead of

entire plane.”